How are you measuring the success of your podcast? Well, first you need to define the goal. In today’s episode I’m breaking down how you can measure your podcast’s success, but it may not necessarily include episode download numbers like you’re thinking.
Clocking In with Haylee Gaffin is produced and brought to you by Gaffin Creative, a podcast production company for creative entrepreneurs. Learn more about our services at Gaffincreative.com, plus you’ll also find resources, show notes, and more for the Clocking In Podcast.
Define Your Goal (1:19)
Note on Making a Profit from Your Podcast (1:38)
Goal: Building Your Listenership (2:40)
Goal: Selling Products (3:26)
Goal: Selling One-on-One Services (4:28)
Consider Your Podcast’s Goal and How You’ll Measure it (5:45)
Beyond Podcasting (7:10)
Links
gaffincreative.com
gaffincreative.com/vipday
Review the transcript:
Do you want to know the hardest question to truly answer for my clients? It’s how do you measure the success of a podcast? I say it’s hard, because there isn’t a right answer. Every single podcast is going to be different! In today’s episode I’m breaking down how you can measure your podcast’s success, but it may not necessarily include episode download numbers like you’re thinking.
Hey y’all welcome to the clocking in podcast the podcast for entrepreneurs and professionals making their way in the working world i’m your host Haylee Gaffin this podcast is produced and brought to you by Gaffin Creative a podcast production company for creative entrepreneurs learn more about our services at Gaffincreative.com plus you’ll also find resources show notes and more for the clocking in podcast so let’s clock in and get to work.
Today’s episode is going to get a little bit feisty.. Ha jk but really, it may spark some controversy and conversation. I want to share all about measuring the success of a podcast, because I come from a background in analytics and data analysis from previous marketing roles, so numbers are important to me… but honestly, download numbers aren’t always high on that list of important numbers.
The first thing I want to say is that you can’t measure the success of your podcast UNTIL you have a defined goal..
Yes, that could be to grow a big listenership so that you can pitch bigger brands to sponsor your show.
Or it could be marketing your brand and selling your products or services.
Whatever your goal is, it will define how you measure the success of your podcast..
So, let’s imagine that you’re trying to get to a place where you can make a profit on your podcast through sponsorships. Many sponsorships use a CPM (cost per mil) to determine the sponsorship amount. That’s the cost they’ll pay per 1,000 listeners. To be completely honest, the industry standard for sponsorships with shows of 1,000 downloads per episode is tiny… so tiny in fact it’s almost insulting. I’m almost afraid to tell you.. It’s $20-25 per 1000 downloads. This is based on bigger podcasts with hundreds of thousands of downloads per episode. So for the smaller podcasts out there that are serving a niche audience, it would truly be hard to find a sponsor that will even cover the cost of post production. Listen, I’m working on a way to change that mindset in our smaller podcast space.
So back to building up that listenership… if that’s you’re goal then we have to focus on those download numbers, both at episode release and ongoing.
Additionally, we’d need to consider what marketing efforts we’re making to get people to listen in order to help with the success of the show.. But that’s another episode for another day..
Let’s imagine a different goal for your podcast. You’re looking to sell products in your shop. This could be a t-shirt shop, a digital product shop, or even a course. Ideally, you’ll want to track the traffic of the listeners that visit or buy from your shop. This could either come through tracking links in the show notes or you could use a discount code specific to the podcast to help understand where traffic came from.
In this case, a higher listenership is always nice to have, considering that you have an unlimited supply of course seats, physical and digital products, etc. This offering is scalable, which means you’d want to reach more people to continue to sell this product to, so it’s not that your primary goal is to have a high listenership, but a higher listenership will lead to more sales.
On the other hand, you may want to sell your one on one services to your podcast audience. Unlike products, your one on one services aren’t as scalable because your time is limited. I get that. The beauty of this is that you don’t have to have a large listenership if this is your goal.. You can get away with serving a small audience with your podcast in order to book out your services. For example, I’ve decided for the 2022 year, I’ll be limiting myself to 10 ongoing post-production clients. 10. That’s not a lot.. Essentially, I don’t have to promote my ongoing services on the podcast, because my VIP day clients typically turn into ongoing production clients. According to marketing charts, the industry standard for ad-driven sales conversion rates on podcast is .062%. That means if I needed to book those 10 clients, I only need 162 listeners on my podcast. But, if I only needed to book one more client to complete my bookings, I would only need 16 listeners. 16.
Listenership isn’t everything.. Obviously it helps and it feels great to have that support, but depending on the goal of your podcast, it’s definitely not the main thing you need to focus on in measuring your podcast’s success.
I want you to consider what your goal is, why it’s important to you, and how you’ll measure it. There are so many options for defining what your goal is and how you’ll measure it.
If you have a podcast already and you’re not entirely sure what the goal is anymore, how you’re measuring it, or how you need to be marketing for that goal on the podcast, make sure you check out my Podcast Strategy VIP Days! I’m currently booking December and January VIP Days. We’ll work through defining your goal, determine how to measure that goal, set up the workflows and backend to get it measured, and find creative ways to either market your podcast or drive leads towards the goal in your podcast. These spots are limited, so head over to gaffincreative.com/033 to inquire today and see if this is the right fit for your podcast!
This has been another episode of The clocking in podcast. You can find the show notes for this episode and more at Gaffincreative.com. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. If you love this episode, I’d be so honored if you leave me a review in Apple podcast app. Until next time, I’m your host Haylee Gaffin, clocking out.
